The Macy's Parade Studio is Thanksgiving's answer to Santa's Workshop. The New Jersey warehouse may not look like much from the outside — it's no storybook-esque, snow-covered abode with glowing windows — but inside, it's every Thanksgiving lover's dream come true. Floats for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade tower in every corner of the place shooting confetti, or spinning round and round. And instead of elves, there are painters, carpenters, and balloon-makers hard at work.

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"As early as January, we start working to determine what we're going to do," says Susan Tercero, the Vice President of Macy's Parade and Entertainment Group. "Around early spring, we come up with design concepts, then we start construction in the summer." This year, the crew is adding five new floats to the mix, including ones for Entenmann's, Green Giant, and Sour Patch Kids.

Jonathan Boulton

For float designers, the process is kind of like method acting — only it's method snacking. "Popping a few Sour Path Kids as they went certainly helped," laughs Tercero. On the float, the "candy" are the size of a kindergartener, each are painted the signature blue, red, green, and yellow hues, with a top coat of glitter paint that looks like sugar. The entire structure is the brand's first entry into the parade, and it stands three stories high and 32 feet wide.

Jonathan Boulton

The floats look deceivingly average-sized in a gigantic warehouse, but to be driven on the streets of New Jersey to the parade's starting point in New York, they've got to be folded up like origami. "They have to be packed up to fit through the Lincoln Tunnel, so we have to think about how we are going to fold up the pieces on the ends and make sure the top is only a certain height," says Tercero.

But with decades of experience under their belts, the process thankfully goes off without a hitch. This year marks the 91st anniversary of the parade, and you can watch the line-up of floats shuffle through Manhattan in person or on NBC.

The Macy's Parade Studio is Thanksgiving's answer to Santa's Workshop. The New Jersey warehouse may not look like much from the outside — it's no storybook-esque, snow-covered abode with glowing windows — but inside, it's every Thanksgiving lover's dream come true. Floats for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade tower in every corner of the place shooting confetti, or spinning round and round. And instead of elves, there are painters, carpenters, and balloon-makers hard at work.